Thursday, June 30, 2016

The
Death Of Winter:
For the first time ever, the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream crossed
the Equator and merged with the Southern Hemisphere Jet Stream.
Scientists used decidedly unscientific terms like “weird” and
“unprecedented” to describe this and said that “this would not
happen in an normal world” and if it continues it would “threaten
seasonal integrity.” Welcome to climate change.

Truth:
The Brexit vote is not the biggest threat to the EU; the euro is,
followed closely by the
EU itself.

When
He's Right, He's Right:
“Not only will the
TPP undermine our economy, but it will undermine our independence.
The
TPP creates a new international commission that makes decisions the
American people can’t veto. These commissions are great for Hillary
Clinton’s Wall Street funders who can spend vast amounts of money
to influence the outcomes.

It
should be no surprise then that Hillary Clinton, according to
Bloomberg, took a “leading part in drafting the Trans-Pacific
Partnership”. She praised or pushed the TPP on 45 separate
occasions, and even called it the “gold standard”.

Hillary
Clinton was totally for the TPP just a short while ago, but when she
saw my stance [braggadocio!], which is totally against, she was
shamed into saying she would be against it too – but have no doubt,
she will immediately approve it if it is put before her, guaranteed.

She
will do this just as she has betrayed American workers for Wall
Street throughout her career. Here’s how it would go: she would
make a small token change, declare the pact fixed, and ram it
through. That’s why Hillary is now only saying she has problems
with the TPP “in its current form,” – ensuring that she can
rush to embrace it again at her earliest opportunity.

… I
have a challenge for you. Ask Hillary Clinton if she is willing to
withdraw from the TPP her first day in office and unconditionally
rule out its passage in any form.” Donald Trump

Ins
& Outs:
Incomes increased 0.2% in May while our spending increased 0.4%.
Pretty much the American Dream in
a nutshell.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

In
Memoriam:"The towers
are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble along with all hopes for Peace
in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no
mistake about it: We are At War now – with somebody – and we will
stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives. It
will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by
religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will
be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no
identifiable enemy ... This is going to be a very expensive war, and
Victory is not guaranteed." Hunter
S. Thompson, September 12, 2001

Numbers
of Numbers:
There are any number of polls regularly assessing the relative
standing of Trump
and Clinton among… well, that's the question. Who are the polled?
Does the poll represent some theoretical cross-section of Americans?
Does it reflect some sort of electoral college potential voting cross
section? There are only a handful of states that actually matter this
fall, and neither
Montana nor
Maine count. Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and a couple of others…
yeah. Who's leading there and by how much? That's what will matter.

Sound
and Fury: The
Republicans, after eight Benghazi investigations and over $7 million
poured down the rat hole, cannot find one concrete thing that Hillary
or Obama or anyone else did wrong. An immense waste of time, money
sand public misdirection. Oh, wait that was
the point. Throw mud and see if any of it sticks. Let's give
Representative Gowdy a hand, even
though he himself admits it was all a big waste of time, he got
himself an awful lot of publicity during and we can look forward to
the next round of the eternal Benghazi investigation in years to
come.

Skin
In The Game:
About 65
million US adults have nothing
saved for an emergency,
much less for
retirement. Pizza and a beer on Saturday is as good as it gets.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Sham
Shamed:The Supremes told the
Texas legislature that they weren't fooling anyone with their
ridiculous “for
the safety of the ladies” anti-abortion law. Now we get to see
the Republicans in in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin try to find
yet another way to deprive American women of their constitutional
rights.

Practical
Illusion:
Technically the UK's vote to leave the European Union is not legally
binding. Either the Prime Minister or the Parliament could chose to
ignore the outcome and continue business as usual. But that would
take more political guts than are on display in London these days.
Anyway, the EU can't unilaterally kick them out, but must await
notification under Article 50 of the EU charter. The vote and
associated hemming and hawing in England,
Scotland and Northern Ireland does not bode well for the
stability of the continental EU. Europe is a depressed economy
desperately in need of more demand. The problem is made much worse
by the constant demand from Brussels and Berlin for smaller
government budgets and “structural reform” - which is code-talk
for cutting worker wages and pensions and healthcare and selling off
the public's properties and services to the highest bidder. The
Eurozone and the European Union were two marvelous
but unworkable concepts at conception, and they still are.

The
Show Must Go On:Seats
for Hamilton! staringHillary
Clinton are
on sale now. Tickets range fro $2,700 to $100,000, popcorn extra.
Sorry, headliner Lin-Manuel Miranda will not be appearing.

Ambulance
Chasers: In Texas a county or town can farm out collection of
fines to lawyers on a
contingency basis, which can and does lead to the lawyers
dragging out the process to increase their fee recovery while seeking
millions and even billions for such trivia as “illegal dumping”
or code violations. It's
more or less legal.
Most
of the things
money-grubbing lawyers
can think up are legal
in Texas.

Try,
Try Again:
Michigan's pilot program of drug-testing welfare recipients has
failed to identify a single positive result, so Governor Snyder is
now undertaking a pilot program which enables cops to pull over and
administer a road-side
drug test to those suspected to be black
or poor under
the influence of a drug other than good old alcohol.

Monday, June 27, 2016

Fading
Fast: Now
that Sanders has been neutered, the Clintonites have killed the
Democratic Platform Plank opposing the TPP and TTIP. That's how deep
Hilary's convictions went on the trade issue. Stay tuned.

Been
There, Done That:
Back in March BofA, in collaboration with Freddie Mac, began
offering 3%
down mortgages with no mortgage insurance required – because
the US taxpayer was going to make good the losses. Now Quicken, in
cooperation with Freddie Mac,is
offering mortgages
requiring only1%
- once
more putting the
US taxpayer on the hook.With
only 1% down, as soon as the housing market gets a mild chill,
thousands of homeowners [sic] will be underwater. A few days later
those with only 3% equity will be in the same fix. After which it
quickly
becomes 2007.

Hand,
Slapped:
Merrill Lynch got caught “misusing” its customers' cash and has
to pay a $415 million fine, while acknowledging no wrongdoing. No
one goes to jail, of course. If you do the same thing, it is
embezzlement or 'conversion' or, more colloquially, 'playing fast and
loose with other people's money' and is a felony. But not if you're
a banker.

Purity:
Behind closed
doors last week, Republicans killed a portion of the annual VA budget
bill that would have allowed the VA to prescribe medical marijuana to
injured soldiers and those suffering from PTSD. Because maintaining
their 'political integrity' (itself an oxymoron) is far more
important than the health of veterans who can no longer be deployed
to protect other parts of their political idiotology.

The
Future Is Now:
TransCanada, the folks behind the Keystone XL pipeline, are using the
investor-state-dispute-settlement clause of NAFTA to seek $15billion
from the US taxpayer to compensate them for the “costs and lost
profits” they suffered when the US blocked their pipeline.
Globalization does not let
citizens to protect themselves or the environment from the greed of
corporations.

Healthy
Profits: Blue
Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota is going to stop selling
health insurance to
individuals and families, claiming
significant losses when actual sick people have to be covered. Under
slightly different names it will offer more expensive and far more
profitable coverage to those who are most unlikely to use it..

Drip,
Drip, Drip: A
US district judge has ruled that Texas must stop giving its prisoners
arsenic-laced drinking water, which means that Texas inmates will be
getting better treatment than children in Detroit.Who
Is This Guy?
Pope Francis says that the Roman Catholic Church and all Christians
everywhere should seek forgiveness from gay people for the way they
have been treated, to the poor, as well as to women for marginalizing
them and to all the children who have been and are being exploited.
He also offered apologies for “having blessed so many weapons.”

Friday, June 24, 2016

Say
No Evil: The
computer tech who set up the Clinton email server has refused to
answer over 125 questions posed during a deposition ordered by a
federal judge. “… might tend to incriminate me.” Or someone
else.

The
Maine Thing:
The Tea Party's favorite governor, Paul LePage of Maine, says he will
ignore the federal government and his state legislature and impose a
ban the purchase of foods he doesn't approve of by Maine's food stamp
recipients. If he can't do that he'll simply stop the food stamp
program all together. And hold his breath for a really, really long
time.

Mistaken
Identity:Turkey's
Erdoğan
claims
that Europe doesn't want Turkey as a partner because turks are
Muslims. Not true, Recip, Europe doesn't want Turkey because you are
in charge there.

Tone
Deaf: While
Great Britain was voting on the Brexit question, the EU happily went
ahead and authorized a a “common border police” to impose
internal border checks in the Schengen free travel area if individual
member states can't control their own borders. That'll reassure the
Brits who think the undemocratic EU honchos are dictatorial.

Gimme
Shelter:
Over 25% of US renters pay more than half their income in rent. But
it's just the poor, so never mind.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Eating
Their Young:
Lawyers, smelling money in the water, are telling fossil fuel
companies that Exxon will not be the only target of climate change
damages lawsuits and that the damages will be immense. At the same
time there are other lawyers soliciting for clients to populate the
same lawsuits.

Uncooperative:
Teens in Colorado have deliberately refrained from becoming pot
heads following that state's legalization of marijuana, just to piss
off the Republicans.

From
Our Comments Section:“It is unrealistic to
think that constant monitoring of civilian communication such as
emails, U.S. Post, or telephone calls would uncover activities of
"lone wolves," who, by definition, act alone and on impulse
with little or no specific planning other than acquisition of an
automatic weapon and some ammo, unless the moment an automatic weapon
is purchased (along with additional large amounts of ammo) that info
is immediately related to law enforcement and the suspect is
immediately followed and/or apprehended -- action that is currently
unconstitutional.”

Competitive
Edge: The top
EU court has fined Intel $1.2 billion for bribing European computer
makers not to use AMD's chips. Intel is fighting the fine with a
claim that the court did not analyze “all relevant circumstances”
to see whether
the bribery actually worked. If it didn't, no harm no foul, right?

Gunz
R US: Then
next time the oaf next door claims that mass shooting wouldn't happen
if a lot more people carried handguns, tell him that highly trained
police officers miss their targets 82% of the time. Ask him how
accurate a half-drunk civilian will be in a dark bar with people
screaming and running back and forth and masses of adrenaline pumping
into his system, and five or six other patrons brandishing guns and
shooting wildly. And then ask him if he wants to be standing there
with a gun in his hand when SWAT bursts through the door.Nearly 100 people are
killed by guns in the US every day. Automatic weapons are a danger,
but the real danger is
a Congress controlled by the gun lobby.

Protect
And Self-Serve:
Every day in the US, three police officers are arrested. Mostly for
simple assault, drunken driving and aggravated assault, but a
significant number of sexual crimes also make the list, along with
stealing money in various ways. Nearly 40% of the crimes were
committed while on duty.

Golden
Rules: If you
want to work at the Ark Encounter theme park, it is best if you are
heterosexually married. Ken Ham, using $18 million of the Kentucky
taxpayers' money to build his creationist wet-dream, insists
prospective employees affirm they believe in creationism, disavow
homosexuality and promise not to engage in premarital sex.

See
No Evil: When
House Democrats 'occupied' the well house and refused to disband
until some effective gun legislation was passed, NRA sponsored
Republicans shut down
the cameras
inside the US House of Representatives, depriving
we the citizens (and voters) from watching

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Trace
Evidence:
A Honduran unit trained by US Special Forces was given the names and
photographs of dozens of social and environmental activists and told
to kill them. Some members of the
elite squad refused to do so and deserted, but those on the kill
list
have been systematically killed by Honduran troops. The US
continues to fund the junta and Honduran
military with hundreds of millions of dollars. (If
US fruit companies and such come to mind, so be it.)

Top
Down:
The European Project has always been a mostly unexamined dream by
the elite piled
onto the
backs of uninformed and unasked citizens. The distantly
grasped ideal was a Unified Europe of integrated nations,
economically strong yet culturally distinct even as the member
nation-states dissolved into the ether. Didn't happen. Isn't going
to. And the euro itself is but the most easily identifiable bad
idea, along with the substitution of technocrats for citizens. It
will not
–
no matter which way the British vote – not last forever, or
even all that much longer.

The
Tide Rolls On:
DA Jerry Jones says he is not going to prosecute a couple of Alabama
football players because they are Alabama football players, “who
have spent their adolescence and their teenage years working and
sweating while we were all home in the air conditioning."

Watching,
Waiting:
The Pentagon, through DARPA, wants to develop “tools” to use on
the Internet to
combat unspecified enemies through various social media platforms and
websites
to identify and counteract 'lone wolf' individuals who may at some
point take up arms against imaginary evils. Soon
it will be difficult to know if you are being mislead by ISIS or
manipulated by the Pentagon. Since
9-11, and the introduction of numerous pieces of draconian
legislation ostensibly aimed at combating
terrorism, the agencies charged with surveillance and law enforcement
have not managed to prevent any
attacks.
One
could reasonably ask what
exactly legislation such as the PATRIOT Act is really intended to
accomplish, as
it has done nothing for our safety.

Weakness
Is Strength:Just
as Congress decided after Saudi-financed young men flew airplanes
into the World Trade Center that in order to prevent a repeat of that
tragedy Americans had to give up most of their personal liberties,
don't be real surprised when the aftermath of the Orlando tragedy
will be the loss of even more privacy to the police surveillance
state… for our own good. Not to mention NRA contributions. It
does
not matter who or what becomes
President next, the
march to total police state will continue.

The
Arbiters:The
Supreme Court, absent a vocal Justice Sotomayor, has
decreed that the Constitution is null and void if violating its
provisions can lead to a conviction.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Mystery
Solved:
Some seem puzzled that 10 years after the housing bubble burst so
many Americans are struggling to pay their rent and not taking part
in the real estate recovery. It is very simple: Vast numbers of
one-time homeowners were financially gutted in Wall Street's housing
trap and have not recovered. And will not, because rapacious
investors swooped in, bought up the crushed housing on the cheap and
have now raised rents so the former owners cannot afford to rent
their old homes. And wages remain stagnant,
so there is little hope for a flourishing middle
class
housing renaissance
any time soon.

Sauce/Goose/Gander:
The US commander in Europe, who has just overseen a joint NATO
exercise involving the rapid deployment of troops to the Russian
border in the Balkans, says we should fear Russia's ability to
rapidly deploy large numbers of troops on their side of the same
border.

Blessing
The Little Children:
Bill Donohue, a Roman Catholic member of the New York state
legislature, explains he led the effort to kill a bill that would
have made it easier for victims of sexual abuse to bring suit against
their abusers because it was an attempt to “rape” the Catholic
church.

Gasping
At Straws:
Phytoplankton in the seas are responsible for producing about half
of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Scientists predict that when the
world's oceans warm by 6°C (10.8°F) plankton will stop producing
oxygen. They also predict that this may happen by 2100. Take a deep
breath and relax; most likely you'll die of something else before
then.

The
Spared
Rod:
“There
is a whole economics literature on the importance of being able to
fire workers as a way of ensuring work discipline. Unfortunately this
never seems to apply to the people at the top. And this is seen most
clearly in the cases of those responsible for economic policy in the
European Union.”

Populism:
Surveys consistently show that Americans overwhelmingly want a
single payer healthcare program – like that proposed by Mr.
Sanders. So the Democrats have selected Mrs. Clinton, who adamantly
refuses to consider any program that would hurt the profits of the
medical, insurance, or pharmaceutical industries.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Analysis:
“Democracy,
national sovereignty and global economic integration are mutually
incompatible: we can combine any two of the three, but never have all
three simultaneously” Economist Dani Rodrik

Right
To Wrong:
Exxon, defending itself against lawsuits over its attempts to dismiss
global warming for decades, claims its free speech rights include the
right to lie to the public. You'd think they were politicians, but
they've only bought a bunch of Republicans in the House to take over
this investigation and wrest it from the less
reliable hands at state levelbefore
someone finds Exxon guilty.

Entrails:
Various financial institutions seem to be preparing us for an
economic downturn. In the words or Richard Fisher, former head of
the Dallas Fed, “There will be a correction. Suck it up. Deal with
it. That's reality." The
world's central bankers are doing all they can – through zero
and negative interest rates – to get us to either (1) spend money
to increase demand, or (2) buy stocks to increase capital. And
we're not doing #1 and we don't seem too much inclined to do #2.
What's behind
door number three?

Punt:
French President Hollande, faced with ever more recalcitrant
laborers, has threatened to outlaw labor protests until his “labor
reforms” have been accepted. Until morale improves, the French are
forbidden to have any.

More
Of The Same:
May's housing numbers are out and it's another chorus of “Housing
Starts Flat, Household Incomes
Stagnant At
1995 levels.”
Cribibing
from the BLS jobs report.

Delusions:
Turkey's president Erdoğan says he will build military barracks in
Istanbul's Gezi Park, apparently feeling he now will be able to crush
any opposition to the move and restructure
the country's courts to suit his purposes. He also thinks Turkey
is ready to build its own aircraft
carriers – to confront which enemy is unclear, but Erdoğan
seems capable of finding more than one if necessary. At home his
chief
advisor has proclaimed, "There
is no need for anyone else to engage in politics. Our duty is to
support the leader in this country."

Downward
Spiral:Immediately
following the carnage in Orlando, Republicans in Congress voted to
continue the NRA sponsored 20 year prohibition against using federal
funds to study gun violence in the US, despite the AMA's new push to
get funding for such research. Obviously Americans
have decided it is far easier to regularly bury the innocent with
a great show of grief and contrition than to address the actual
causes of this uniquely American disease. The problem is not
“radical Islam”, the problem is ignorant, fearful, insecure
Americans.

Friday, June 17, 2016

A
Passing Phase:
US industrial production was down 1.1% in May, making it nine months
in a row of consecutive declines. This has never before happened
outside a recession. Never.

Run/Hide: The FBI has accumulated over 400 million photos in its face
recognition files, the better to make you feel safe. Never mind that
the Face Recognition process hasn't
been proven yet, it will be by the time your trial comes around.

Record
Record:
Atmospheric CO2 concentrations over Antarctica have reached 400 PPM
for the first time in 4 million years.

Two
For One:
Hidden inside that Intel x86 computer you bought is another computer
that you cannot access nor monitor, which can take over your machine
and loot all of your files. It's a safety feature.

Easy
Steps:
Those who think they may want to overthrow the government want the
government to make sure they have easy access to the weapons they'll
need to overthrow the government. Guys, if you want to do something
illegal, don't be shy about using illegally obtained weapons to do
so. There are no valid arguments for civilians to possess automatic
or semi-automatic weapons. Hunters should be able to get the deer
with a bolt action rifle and a three shot built-in clip. Personal
protection should be limited to 5 shot revolvers. A
pump shotgun will do for chasing away burglars.

Without
Comment:
Candidate Clinton has received more money from US pharmaceutical
company employees than all entire stable of Republican candidates.

Factually:
If you cannot stand being a loser, don't become a leftist.
"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you're going
to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and
lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins." I.F.
Stone.

The
Piecetakers:
Israel, which has as a percentage of area, stolen more territory than
Putin, is somehow blackmailing the US into providing $40 billion in
military aid over the next ten years in order
to “upgrade” its aircraft and missile defense systems
and to defend against teenage Palestinian kids with rocks.
Not a complete waste, because the money will be spent on various
members of the US war machine – like those still making
and profiting from cluster bombs.

Memo
For Mr. Sanders:
Nearly half of Democrats want Bernie Sanders to mount an independent
campaign for the Presidency.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Oh
So Sorry:Following
the Orlando massacre, Congress held a “minute of silence” to give
members time to remember the money and votes the NRA has given them
to make these moments possible.

Be
Even More Afraid:
Hillary Clinton promises to “make
sure our
law enforcement and intelligence professionals
have all the resources they need to get the job done.” Donald
Trump wants to increase
surveillance of
mosques.
A federal judge says it would be illegal to tell people which utility
poles have cameras the FBI is using to watch us. Your friend
Mark Ackerman has figured out a way to let Facebook advertisers keep
track of which stores you shop in. And the US Director of National
Intelligence wants to develop an interconnected network that would –
apparently automatically – identify
suspicious behavior in real time. Nothing new here, mass
surveillance is nothing
new.

Reasonable
Doubt:
The NY senate took a few moments off from enriching themselves and
their patrons and passed a bill creating a terrorist registry modeled
after the sex offender registries, except only suspicion, not
conviction, would be required to harass someone for life.

Party
Time:
Now's a good time to lock in a good deal; Wells
Fargo is offering 30
year mortgages at 3.75% with 30% down if you have excellent credit.
If you have bad credit you can get the same 30/3.75 deal with only 3%
down. Better yet, go over to BofA where they have a subprime loan
program that offers an even better deal, but only if you have a
below-average income. How can they do this? Well, short memories
helps, but not as much as having Fannie Mae pick up the slack.
Right, we the taxpayers will be on the hook for these bad loans.
Again.

Privacy:While
Russian government sponsored hackers have broken into the server at
the DNC, as well as hacking the White House, State Department and the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, they have never been able to get into the
private email server in Mrs. Clinton's basement. Right?

Clarification:
When law enforcement officials in Florida speak of plans to arrest
alleged accomplices of the Orlando gunman, they are not talking about
the NRA leadership.

Beating
The Drum:
The US Senate has approved a bill that would require women to
register for the draft. PM Justin Trudeau is planing to deploy
Canadian troops to Europe because Russia is “mobilizing
for war.”

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Macho
Man: The
American male's long standing and deep seated insecurity over his
masculinity explains a great deal about the popularity of pickups,
cowboy boots, tattoos, random mass shootings and the nation's gun
problem.

Copy
Editing:
Which is correct: (1) “The
White House Exaggerates the Benefits of the TPP to the Open
Internet”, (2)
“The White House Exaggerates the Benefits of the TPP to
the Open Internet”,
or (3) “The White House Exaggerates the
Benefits of the TPP to the Open Internet”

Free
Doesn't Mean Free:
A uniform basic income (UBI) – wherein the state provides a basic
minimum income to every person – has something for everyone. For
the left it would be a way of fighting poverty, for the Right it
would be a way to streamline and simplify the social welfare state
and stop its creep. And for those who really matter, the corporate
giants who want all the money, it would be a way of providing their
potential customers with money to buy stuff they are not needed to
produce. And it would tend to keep slavery overseas.

Pot/Kettle:
It is claimed Goldman Sachs hired prostitutes to win Libyan
business. And apparently those whores hired women of ill repute to
help them.

Just
So:
“There are good trade agreements to be made. And they can focus on
things like protecting a free and open internet, and creating
important safe harbors for communication and innovation. But the TPP
is not that agreement.”

Bird
In The Hand:
Microsoft is buying LinkedIn for $26 billion in new debt, not
touching the $92 billion in cash it has socked away overseas, hidden
from the US taxman. Why are they paying $250 a head for every active
LinkedIn customer? Captive sitting ducks for its push into cloud
computing and professional services. Any other questions?

Tone
Deaf: Trump is once again calling for an
immigration ban, but the Orlando shooter was born in the US and
is as American as Trump – who has four
kids who were born to immigrant mothers. The problem is not
immigration, nor being Muslim. This was a homophobic hate crime –
and there is nothing more patriotic or “American” than taking an
automatic weapon and killing people out of hate and misinformation.
This was not terrorism, it was simply business as usual.

Monday, June 13, 2016

Instead
of asking why he did it, ask how he could get that much firepower.

Bail
Faster:
In 1Q2016 it took a $10 increase in total debt to drive US GDP up $1.

Leaderslip:
That the Brits get to choose whether to be voiceless serfs or to
leave the EU makes them unique, for none of the rest of the Europeans
seem to have had any say at all. Neither the European Commission nor
the European Parliament pretends
to be a
democratic
institution, or particularly interested in the opinions of its
citizenry.
There is nothing resembling a European Constitution that sets out
the rights and powers of either the citizens or the superstate.

Not
Interested:
Among the major developed nations, only France has a positive yield
on it's 10-year notes. Is it time for a new mattress?

Exhibit
A:
Poland's neoliberal government continues to set the standard for the
rest of Europe, if not the world, to follow. Its new
counter-terrorisim law exceeds even the excesses of the NSA and FBI,
establishing rules that limit the freedom of assembly, permit (or
encourage) arbitrary detention, and grant the state security
apparatus the right to control internet traffic that is deemed a
threat to national security. [This paragraph, for example.] It also
gives the guardians of the state complete access to any and all data
concerning Polish citizens,
even if they're not Jews.

Water
Is Wet:
Scientists report, rather belatedly, that global warming will
“trigger tropical evacuations” - which we used to call refugees.
So will US military
forays.

Outside
The Box:
Spain's Podemos, reaching out to the young adults, has designed a
political and social manifesto that looks much like a catalogue from
Ikea or LLBean... I certainly hope representatives of Podemos and
Portugal's anti-austerity movement help the Bernistas
organize and persevere.

Censorship:
Under pressure from Israel (perhaps joined with unspoken threats
from APIC and the Clinton machine), Facebook and Twitter have given
in to Israeli demands that any positive comments or information about
the Palestinian conflict be deleted from their websites.

Growth
Industry:The
FBI admits it is stepping up its efforts to manufacture terrorism
arrests through sting operations and having paid undercover agents
provoke the dim-witted into doing something that can be trumpeted as
a triumph over terrorism. Be afraid, please, so their budgets can
increase.

Definition: What do the words
'respond' and “unexpected measures” mean in the following threat:
“The Russian Foreign ministry said Moscow would respond to a U.S.
naval ship's entry into the Black Sea with unspecified measures.”

Rear
Guard Action: As part of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the President has
order US forces to expand their role in combat actions in the
country, including “battlefield operations with conventional Afghan
forces.” And be home by Christmas.

Turnabout's
Fair Play:
Drug gangs in the Philippines have offered a bounty on president
elect Rodrigo Duterte who has been offering a bounty for each drug
dealer (or suspected drug dealer, proff not be rigidly required)
killed on the local streetcorner.

Friday, June 10, 2016

Accept
No Substitute:
It seems inexplicable that the US does not use hand-marked paper
ballots, hand counted in public at every polling place in the
country, then publicly warehoused for the duration of the longest
term of any elected candidate. Well, inexplicable unless those in
power want to have less than a full and public tally of the votes.

New
& Improved:
Turkish strongman Recep Erdoğan has insured that Turkey will not be
admitted to the European Union as long as he and his co-conspirators
are in power by signing
into law a measure that essentially makes belonging to any party
but his neo-Islamic AKP illegal and subjects dissenters to torture or
assassination.

Jury
Nullification:
Prospective jurors in lenient-on-rapists Judge Aaron Persky's court
have refused to serve for fear that the Judge's version of justice
wasn't shared by the public.

Averages:Larissa
Martinez, valedictorian
of the McKinney, TX high school, revealed at her graduation that she
was an undocumented immigrant, and explained that she had not brought
drugs nor crime with her when she came at age 11, not had she raped
anyone. She was, as Donald assumed, “one of the good people.”

Question:
If Hillary is elected, will she be impeached over her emails?

Bank
On It:
Starbucks has more customer money piled on its cards than most bank
have in deposits. Can you count your gift card as an asset when
seeking a loan? Will
Starbucks
start
paying
interest?

Our Motto

Keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.